More on the Tour of Missouri contracts

A few readers have asked about Peter Kinder's comments regarding potential lawsuits involving the Tour of Missouri. I posed a few questions about those contracts on Saturday after reporting from the Southeast Missourian and Post-Dispatch showed that the existing contracts don't involve the state at all -- but involve private companies and the private corporation, Tour of Missouri, Inc., chaired by Peter Kinder and directed by Kinder's Deputy Lieutenant Governor.

I pulled three relevant statements from Kinder's interviews last week on KMOX, KMBZ and KFVS.

In each of the interviews, Kinder talks about potential legal issues and "all kinds of contracts" without specifying that said contracts involve Tour of Missouri, Inc. and were signed by Deputy LG Jerry Dowell in Dowell's capacity as ED of TOM Inc. 

In the KMOX and KMBZ interviews, Kinder clearly suggested that the state would be responsible for contracts signed by TOM Inc. And on KFVS, Kinder said "it would devastate the credibility of the state of Missouri to welch on contracts." 

Though partly funded with public money and supported with official resources in the LG office, Tour of Missouri, Inc. is not a state agency; it's a a vendor hired by the state.  And Kinder's apparent willingness to let people think he means "We [the taxpayers]" when he says "We [the people who run my private non-profit corporation]" may face some lawsuits seems quite misleading, at best.

A statement by Kinder's Communications Director on Friday provides another example of these very fuzzy boundaries we're seeing between official acts and private acts:

Whether the race continues now appears to be tied to whether the Tour of Missouri Inc., can satisfy the governor's office about how the money is being spent. Dowell couldn't be reached for comment, but Kinder spokesman Gary McElyea said the Tour previously has provided budget information to the Department of Economic Development.

McElyea, though, said the contracts haven't ever been requested, and he's not sure if they'd be provided since they are between private companies.

"We will cooperate in whatever way we can with the Department of Economic Development," McElyea said.

McElyea is a state employee, hired to represent Kinder in official capacity as Lieutenant Governor.  But here, McElyea clearly seems to be representing TOM Inc. in discussing contracts between private companies. 

If there is an alternate explanation in which it's actually the state on the hook for these contracts, I'm all ears.  But I sure haven't seen one yet.